Biden to Dems: 'Stop whining'

Vice President Joe Biden stoked a firestorm of liberal discontent with President Barack Obama on Monday – demanding that the Democratic base “stop whining” and start fighting Republicans instead of the White House.

Biden, speaking at a frozen yogurt plant in New Hampshire, said he wanted to “remind our base constituency to stop whining and get out there and look at the alternatives. This President has done an incredible job. He’s kept his promises."

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The comments echo Obama’s own recent calls to demobilized Democrats to slough off their apathy – and their disappointment in him – and gear up ahead of the midterms, when Democrats are facing devastating losses.

Biden’s comments weren’t premeditated and reflect Biden’s shoot-from-the-lip style, officials said. But that matters little to a Democratic base grown somnambulant and frustrated with the president’s willingness to accept ugly, if productive, compromises on the stimulus, Wall Street reform and health care.

Judging from the initial reaction to Biden’s remarks in Manchester, the base is plenty fired up – and ready to go.

At Biden’s throat.

One Democratic operative gasped when told of Biden’s remarks and wondered “why they would pick a fight with the base” five weeks before a midterm election that will hinge on turnout.

“It’s idiotic is what it is,” says Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas, one of Obama’s most pointed critics on the left. “If Democrats, with the White House and Congressional super-majorities, had delivered on what they had promised, and if people had jobs, no one would be whining. They have reaped what they sowed. They haven’t delivered on what they’ve promised — and instead of making the case as to why they would do if they are reelected, they are insulting people.

“The ‘professional left’ is busting our butt to mobilize progressive voters in 2010, picking up the ball that this White House dropped when they refused to fight for the overwhelmingly popular public option, refused to break up the big banks, and demobilized Obama voters who expected this President to at least fight for big change,” he told POLITICO.